So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away

“So the Wind Won’t Blow it all Away” is a beautifully-written, brooding gem of a novel – set in the Pacific Northwest region of Oregon where Brautigan spent most of his childhood. Through the eyes, ears and voice of Brautigan’s youthful protagonist the reader is gently led into a small-town tale where the narrator accidentally shoots dead his best friend with a gun. The novel deals with the repercussions of this tragedy and its recurring theme of ‘What if…’ fuels anguish, regret and self-blame as well as some darkly comic passages of bitter-sweet romance and despair. Taken with the recently discovered, “An Unfortunate Woman”, these two late Brautigan novels are a fitting epitaph to a complex, contradictory and often misunderstood genius.